I am an entrepreneur, author, and public speaker on organizational leadership, marketing, and social technology. Today I am co-founder and CEO of SocialxDesign, a new social technology consulting company at the intersection of marketing and human empowerment. For the 2012 election, SocialxDesign advised a number of groups -- including the DNC -- on multicultural outreach strategy.
In prior roles, I served as a senior member of the social-technology team at Deloitte Consulting, chief marketing officer for a publicly traded company, and managing partner of The Conversation Group (TCG), one of the first social-technology consulting firms. I'm a founding fellow at the Society of New Communications Research (SNCR) and a board member at Latinos for Social Media (LATISM).

The Exiles of Puerto Rico

Who today is leaving the island? Can social networking bring them “back”?

El Morro, San Juan. Source: Wikipedia

I was at TEDx San Juan this week — the first such event in Puerto Rico — and one of the dominant threads was “exiles.” For a territory so small, the notion of an exile population might seem laughable. But when you consider the range of people who have left the island — and why — the topic becomes a whole lot more interesting.

I was inspired to write this short post (will try to write something longer soon) after listening to Larry La Fountain speak at this event. The University of Michigan professor talked about Puerto Rico’s LGBT community, and its creative attempts to assert itself through art, song, and writing (his queer rendition of “Over the Rainbow” was one of the best moments of the entire event). Larry cleverly calls this community “sexiles.” Then there’s the growing community of Puerto Ricans who have fled the island for better economic opportunities (an old story, made Hollywood-famous with West Side Story). Then there’s the surprising range of people — surprising for me — who may be leaving the island today because it’s difficult to get fresh food, difficult to get good schooling, difficult to actually navigate the island — all topics that were discussed yesterday at the TEDx conference. I call this class of people the accidental exiles of new Puerto Rico. They are leaving not because they must. They are leaving reluctantly because they feel there are better choices.

The Big Drain

For Puerto Rico, there are at least two problems with the exile effect.

The first, of course, is the loss of people who might play a role in fixing the problems that send people packing. It’s not simply a brain drain, but a general talent drain of many dimensions. This of course is a problem today for many Latin-American countries, but for Puerto Rico — whose people can use their US citizenship to easily make the move to Miami, New York, Chicago, or wherever — it’s a special problem. For years, many folks have viewed the “too easy to leave” phenomenon from another lens: how the frictionless border doesn’t make Puerto Ricans work hard enough to make it in the US. I can sympathize with this POV, but I think it fails to address the problem that the big drain includes so many different kinds of people, including those who can make it anywhere. And if you consider the complexity of the modern workforce where specialization is required to make the economy hum, Puerto Rico cannot afford to lose the long tail of talent.

Second, Puerto Rico appears to lack the infrastructure to make better use of the exile network and tap people in the US and other countries (the US today is not the only destination), even those people who choose to remain abroad. In fact, it’s hard to see that there even is a network. While there are several organizations that have done great work to improve communication between the mainland and the island, they aren’t visible to many people who can benefit from the network. My talk at TEDx San Juan yesterday focused on the recent emergence of Hispanics in social media and some of the possible applications for social media in the Puerto Rican societal context. One application could be the development of a diaspora network dedicated to clear and specific action. While a number of immigrant communities have succeeded without the benefit of social technology — take for example the Indian community in Silicon Valley — the astonishing ascent of Latinos in social networks and the adoption rates (Latinos outnumber other ethnic groups on several social networks) suggest there could be something here.

But technology will not be enough. As we are learning more and more, successful movements of any kind require cooperation and coordination with numerous players in the social mix — federal and local government, stateside and island business people, leaders in academia primary/secondary school education, and NGOs. Puerto Rico faces a wide range of challenges, and they require the collective will of so many people.

The point of this article is not to make the case that exiles should physically return to the island. But with a well-developed network, exiles can return virtually and work with islanders to create conditions that make life better for Puerto Ricans everywhere. And here’s where the learnings of social technology — or to be more precise, social engagement — can make a difference, especially at the beginning of the effort. There’s a saying in my business: “think big, but start small.” Most social tech projects that succeed start with small, experimental efforts to connect people who can actually get things done and then later teach others how to do it. We call them early adopters, and the really good ones later become mentors. It would not take too much to get a network of exiles and islanders going on a small scale and then bring others in. The only real questions are, who will get it started and what will they need to start?

At the conference yesterday, I joked that a White House initiative I am assisting with is like a parranda, the Puerto Rican Christmas ritual were groups of people go door-to-door pulling others into the revelries. I was only half joking — my point is that Latinos in general and Puerto Ricans in particular know a lot about socializing. In fact, our history of moving back and forth between the US and the island may have sharpened our senses and stoked our needs to stay connected. Now might be a good time to flex those social muscles. And with Christmas coming round the corner, it might be time to reimagine the parranda and ask who is knocking on the door and who is on the other side. Call it Parranda 2.0, call it what you will, but let’s get the party started.

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.

Hi Jorge — the point of the article is that while many people have left the island, a virtual network might help Puerto Ricans to improve life on both sides of the “border.” The conversation here in the comments is helping me to flesh out a plan for doing that. Stay tuned — I will be writing a follow-up.

What’s the point of this article? Are people moving from California to Texas for better job opportunities exiles? You don’t believe in the freedom to better yourself? Why would you want to stay in PR if the opportunities where limited? Am I missing something here?

Hi — sorry if it is not clear. Point of the article is that while many leave the island — and for good reason — Puerto Ricans cannot afford to be disconnected from the exile community. As other diaspora groups have demonstrated, well designed networks can improve life on both sides of the “border.” Social technology can be an accelerant for these networks.

Agreed that we know how to socialized, but not collaborated. In order for that to happened we need openness and visibility of transactions. Unfortunately, the Tedx San Juan did not exist to the cultural, academic and others possible interested audiences. Very few people knew about it, so it was a close circuit despited last moment to transmitted it on the web. Therefore, as you can see, if we cannot informed each other, how then we can collaborate? This close circuit is not positive for innovation, the strengthening of the social pacts and promoting working participation among different stakeholders. You are welcome to come back and insert into a dialogue with the different communities.

I beg to differ just a bit here with all due respect. If we want to be informed and participate in discussions, we need to use social media to our benefit. I am an active user of social media and knew about TedXSanJuan because I love to learn, read and filled the application almost 2 months ago. And yes in the audience were teachers and professionals. One example is Jeanette Delgado from Red EducaPR who is doing an incredible job with teachers all over Puerto Rico. If you read more about how Tedx works you will see that the audience who was chosen are people who can make an impact in culture, education, science, charities and many other areas. People need to work a little more about getting good information out there and not waiting to be serve.

My intention was not to put down such an effort. Just to point out that the methods used might not been inclusive. Knowledge migrates different between inter cultural communities. I still stand that it was invisible event for many of us. Something that it might be reflected for future engagement opportunities.